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Costa Book Awards – category winners announced

For the first time, a female author features in every category! The five successful authors will now compete for the 2012 Costa Book of the Year:

Husband and wife team Mary and Bryan Talbot jointly win the Biography Award for Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, an interweaving of two father-daughter relationships (that of James Joyce with his daughter Lucia, and that of the author with her father, a James Joyce scholar) – the first graphic work ever to win a Costa Award.

Hilary Mantel takes the Novel Award for Bring Up the Bodies [a brilliant book according to us here at the blog] which won the 2012 Man Booker Prize, making her the first author to win both these awards in the same year.

Journalist, critic and writer Francesca Segal’s debut novel The Innocents, set in a tightly-knit Jewish community in north-west London, is modelled on Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and wins her the First Novel Award.

The Poetry Award goes to Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie whose book The Overhaul is described by the judges as “the collection that will convert you to poetry”.

Writer – illustrator and dyslexia campaigner Sally Gardner, who as a child was once branded “unteachable”, takes the Children’s Book Award for Maggot Moon, her fifth novel.

The overall Costa Book of the Year will be announced on 29th January. The total prize fund for the Costa Book Awards stands at £55,000. The award winner in each category receives £5,000 with a further £30,000 for the overall winner. May the best woman win!